


Dreaming Bitter Darkly

by TwinKats



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Deimos can see alternate realities, Dreams as a plot device, F/F, Gen, I feel comfortable tagging that now, Implied Child Abuse, Implied Sexual Abuse, Implied Violence, Isu biology, M/M, Mental Instability, Rating might go up, Strange Isu biology, The comfort part at least, The precursors were weird, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, deimos centered, eventually, implied self harm, outright stated self harm, outright stated violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-08-09 14:56:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16452050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwinKats/pseuds/TwinKats
Summary: It starts when Deimos is a boy. He dreams of an island Kephallonia, a man Markos, a bird Ikaros, a girl Phoibe–all things that the Cult says don’t exist. This is a lie.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There is heavily implied child abuse (which is canon), sexual abuse, depression, self harm, unhealthy coping mechanisms, and other horrible acts that have left behind trauma. This is placed in the mindset of Deimos who is Not Okay. I will update the warnings as they are needed.

It starts when Deimos is a boy. He dreams of an island named Kephallonia, of a man named Markos, and a bird named Ikaros. He dreams of mishaps and misadventures and the multitude of foolish things Markos gets up and into, including some skirts and some wine and possibly a child or two that results from the union, no one is ever quite sure. He dreams of sorrow and bitterness and loss—of a mother who doesn’t abandon him, but of a father who does kill him which leaves things all the same as much as he wants otherwise.

Deimos makes the mistake of telling Chrysis of his dreams only once and his reward is pain and pain and more pain. He is beaten black and blue, is bled and burned for his folly. Chrysis touches his hair and strokes her fingers along his back as he cries through the pain, through his ever so lovingly given  _gift_.

“There is no Kephallonia, there is no Markos, there is no Ikaros,” Chrysis tells him, and Deimos takes it to heart. “These are foolish dreams, Deimos, designed to tempt you away from your fate. Do you hear me, my son?”

Deimos fights down his sobs, utters, “Yes, mater,” and speaks no more of Kephallonia, of Markos, of Ikaros, of the name Alexios—of Kassandra. Deimos bottles his dreams up and away and focuses instead on the pain, on his birthright. A little part of him dies that day, and every subsequent day after as the dreams continue. They taunt him and torture him and reinforce the idea that Chrysis is  _right_. The world is pain, and pain is his birthright. He will wash the world in pain and pay it back tenfold.

This, Deimos utters in the dead of night, he swears. The world will pay in sin and blood for the pain it gives him. Every lesson Chrysis imparts from here on out Deimos takes to heart so completely, so utterly, that it leaves the rest of the Cult of Kosmos breathless. He hears them whisper on the days he is drawn into their meetings, where they shed his blood as quickly as they shed the blood of their enemies, and he grits his teeth and bears it. He bears the attentions of the Eyes and of Elpeanor, who helps Chrysis as she demands it. He bears the attentions of the lesser beings and bottles it all nice and neatly away.

Eventually Deimos ceases to think of a mother that loves him and remembers the mother that abandons him. He ceases to think of a father that throws him from a cliff-face, of a baby sister that does not exist. Soon he ceases to look at the skies and wish for an eagle of his own, granted by Zeus, like the one in his dreams. He starts to hate eagles after the fifth sacrifice Chrysis makes in front of him, and he begins to kill each and every eagle he sees after the seventh.

Eagles are worse than sin, Deimos decides, and his want of one is worse than being worse than sin. He is a god in living flesh; he has no need for favors of Zeus. In fact he welcomes Zeus’ wrath, let the god come and fight him—let him show them all what fools they are and kill them for their sins and greed, the stink of their filth and sex and how they leave behind children to be broken by fools who claim to be  _mater_ and  _pater_.

Deimos does away with  _mater_  and  _pater_  when he is ten. He dreams of a girl named Phoibe who lost her family, who follows him that is twenty around and Markos that still drags him into trouble with whims and fancies. Deimos is ten but twenty and his heart beats  _Kassandra_  the baby sister he loses, the baby sister that doesn’t exist and never will exist because Deimos is  _ten_  and not  _twenty_  and when Deimos becomes Deimos he’s a babe anyway. His sister isn’t real, and Deimos accepts that like he accepts everything else in his life which is not really at all.

He is ten, though, when he beats Chrysis black and blue and shows Elpeanor why he’ll not accept another hand upon his skin. He is ten when he fights back and Chrysis cries; she cries of joy and pain and it disgusts him. He is ten when he terrified Elpeanor until the man flees and he only ever sees him during nights of gathering at the temple of Delphi. Deimos is ten as he shows the Cult everything they’ve ever taught him and the eldest’s of the group whisper about how they’ve created a monster, a horrifying terrifying beast, and isn’t it wonderful?

Deimos is ten, he bears his teeth with blood while Chrysis sobs on the ground before him and Elpeanor fights for his life as his life’s blood flows from wrists and broken heads, and rejoices as the Cult moves in fear. He is ten and he is a  _God_  and these dreams of a girl named Phoibe, the nightmares of Phoibe in Chrysis or Elpeanor’s grasps, remain right where they belong. They stay behind his lips because he is  _ten_ and not  _twenty_  and Phoibe doesn’t exist like Kassandra doesn’t exist. Kephallonia doesn’t exist. Markos doesn’t exist. Ikaros doesn’t exist.

Then at fifteen Deimos learns this is a lie and he kills the fool to tell him.

* * *

 

Deimos goes to Kephallonia for a day. He is fifteen and doesn’t say a word to anyone, he just goes. He dresses in his most bedraggled shit, leaves behind his glowing sword from the forge of the gods, and just _goes_. He doesn’t think about it, about the consequences of this choice, because Deimos doesn’t _think_. He overhears the Eyes whispers of a girl on Kephallonia, an island that he’s told doesn’t exist. He overhears words about the bloodline, and _family_ , and it strikes something within him into a whipcord fury.

He’s already killed ten people in his rage before he leaves, and that settles the Cult into enough of a frenzy to wonder what set him off so that Deimos isn’t missed for the week of travel to Kephallonia and back. All of it is rather deviously done; Deimos sneaks aboard a ship in the clothes of some ‘Cyclops’ men, then sneaks off when on Kephallonia. He changes his clothes back to the bedraggled and broken pieces of leathers he’s stolen away from the Cult and sneaks around the island for a day.

Deimos watches. Observes. He finds Markos that doesn’t exist and just _sees_ the things that cannot, possibly be real. He spots Phoibe who is barely nine, smaller than Deimos thought and Deimos isn’t as large as many others. He’s short in his own stature, growing still, with a barely there scraggle of facial hair. It is a point of embarrassment that he lets no one get away with.

Phoibe speaks with a woman, tall and pretty faced with long hair that drapes over her shoulder in a braid. The woman has an eagle, Ikaros, that Deimos recognizes like a pang through his heart. He clenches his hands tight around his knife. Ikaros is _his_.

 _Ikaros isn’t real_.

Phoibe calls the woman Kassandra.

Deimos feels like his world is falling apart. He sneaks away then to butcher wildlife in a fit of rage, screams into a cave as he tears wolves apart with his bare hands, and then cries into the bloodied mess for a few hours before, looking like some sort of demonic creature, he emerges to clean himself off. This trip of his is a mistake, Deimos knows this. He is fifteen and not twenty-five and this is his first time stepping foot upon Kephallonia. Ikaros is not his. This is not his life. He does not exist here. His dreams are taunts of the Gods and the world only likes to remind him of this. His life is pain and not—not this. This is not his.

He wants it, though, Deimos knows. He wants this life. He wants to be twenty-five with nine year old Phoibe and older than dirt Markos and Ikaros that lives forever and is _his_. He wants Kephallonia to be his home and to have a baby sister that dies named Kassandra and not who—who this is. This woman that has his Ikaros and his Phoibe and his Markos and his Kephallonia and his baby sisters name that doesn’t exist.

Deimos strips himself down and baths in the waters off some sort of lake he didn’t bother to learn the name of. He cleans the terrible armors as he scrubs his skin clean and watches as the water turns red with blood both his and not. He stares at his arms and hands, at his chest, and the mess of scars that covers him. The Cult says he is as beautiful as if carved from statute, burn marks, cuts, scars, and all. He takes the praise because it is flattering, but kills any that look at him like Elpeanor once. He takes eyes and tongues with equal measure and makes a show of vicious violence because he refuses to be touched.

“Oh. Hi!”

Kephallonia is a threat. Deimos whirls around, surprised when he shouldn’t be, lost in his own thoughts because _Kephallonia is a threat_. He crouches low in the waters and sees Phoibe on a rock, knees up to her chin as she watches him with wide eyes and a smile.

“I’ve never seen you before!” she says full of cheer and Deimos—a part of Deimos curls up inside, all hallow and broken beyond repair. He stays mute. What can he say to one of his dreams brought to life. “I’m Phoibe,” she says.

Deimos says nothing. She frowns a little, leans forward, and Deimos leans back wary.

“Can you not speak?” Phoibe asks, and Deimos says nothing. “I’m sorry.”

Deimos says nothing as Phoibe moves closer, as she reaches out to touch him. He says nothing as he shoves her aside the minute she touches his arm with wide and curious eyes. He yells, and then runs, and then disappears beneath the waters surface and leaves everything behind.

Kephallonia is a mistake, Deimos admits once he’s back on a boat and bound for home. Kephallonia the lie, the mistake. Deimos vows to never come back again—it is a lie to himself, though, because Deimos can’t forget Kephallonia. His dreams won’t let him, and that urge to visit comes back strong and strong. He remembers Phoibe who stares at him in horror as he throws her—Phoibe that stares at him with adoration—and Deimos never wants to see Kephallonia again.

Except he does, a few more times over the years, and each time when he comes back home he cuts a swathe of bloodshed to remind himself that _Kephallonia is not real_. At least not the Kephallonia he dreams of. Phoibe though, Deimos knows, Phoibe is real. Deimos returns to Kephallonia if only for her.

* * *

 

The war between Athens and Sparta is going stronger than ever when Deimos is seventeen. His dreams change their shape with the changing shape of the war, and it leaves Deimos breathless. He can see how Kephallonia remains this pure little place, otherwise untouched by Spartans or Athenians and a part of it is he knows the Cult. They want Sparta or Athens to stay away from Kephallonia like they want Deimos to stay away from Kephallonia.

He laughs bitterly to himself. Too late. He knows what is on Kephallonia and it only incites more rage, more longing, until Deimos cuts his own skin just to feel pain that is more _here_ than _there_. As punishment Deimos demands blood sacrifice from the Cult, enforces it when they refuse to comply, and then continues on with his whims and fancies and the few orders the Cult deigns to give him.

There are whispers on the wind that catch Deimos’ ears, though, as he moves about and kills indiscriminately both Athenians and Spartans and high profile targets that refuse to listen to the Cults demands. There is a Wolf in Sparta that is interesting, that the Eyes want more of, and that drives Deimos to learn more. The Wolf is Nikolaos, and it burns within him because he knows that name. He cries it out sometimes in his dreams as his vision fades to a night upon a cliff-face. Nikolaos is _pater_ to Alexios, is his killer, which leaves Deimos wondering if Nikolaos is _his_ father too. Is Nikolaos the one who condemns him to death as a babe?

There is whispers of Kassandra, too, talks of getting her off of Kephallonia, and of a woman named Myrinne. Chrysis hates Myrinne as much as she loves her, Deimos learns. She wants her to have children, but she hates her for something else. Loves her for giving her a child, hates her for something else. Deimos isn’t sure of the reasons, but he has an inkling on who this Myrinne is. Her name isn’t something he hears in his dreams often, but it is a name he knows he thinks.

Myrinne—is she mother that left him for dead, that didn’t want the babe, but screams when Deimos is Alexios over baby Kassandra? His swirling thoughts give him no peace, so he makes the Cult suffer in its stead. He sics the Monger on those the Cult is yet to fully control and watches as the beastly man tortures for fun and pleasure. He seeks out is own in making various members of the cult bleed—the ones that he can see all to well with little Phoibe and perhaps baby Kassandra and that’s all he needs to make them _suffer_ and to kill them.

Deimos begins to plot the death of Elpeanor in this way, and perhaps the death of Chrysis, both now outliving their usefulness. Deimos plots get more elaborate, more inane as time passes until word reaches him that Kassandra has _left_ Kephallonia. He hears of a contract on the Wolf, on Nikolaos, and it takes little to put it together. Elpeanor is long past his usefulness.

Then Elpeanor is dead, and the dreams get worse and stranger because in them Deimos as Alexios meets Nikolaos. In them he kills him and saves him and it leaves him confused. In them he is not Alexios of Sparta, son of Nikolaos, but Alexios the misthios son of no one because there is no one as a father to him. His father, the one who raised Deimos that is twenty-seven is not his father but does that make him Deimos that is seventeen’s father? Deimos doesn’t understand it, so he seeks out Elpeanor.

This is Elpeanor’s fault, so Deimos will make sure Elpeanor pays the price—except Elpeanor is dead. Elpeanor is dead and the killer stands in their little sanctum with wide eyes behind Elpeanor’s mask and staring at him, and whispers a name that _is not his_.

“Alexios?”

Deimos bids her go, watches her leave, and murders another cultist in the rage and _pain_ that wants to swallow him whole.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deimos is Deimos, isn't he?

It strikes him as he stares at her, beneath the mask, as he stares at her out of the mask, that what he sees is impossible. One second he stands there, hand pressing against the pyramid as she stands there, hand pressing next to his. He stares at her from beneath the mask he stole from a rotting corpse, as she stares back at him with naked horror that he knows mirrors his own. Then he’s staring  _into_  the mask, into himself—into  _her_ —and his head  _hurts_.

Deimos awakens from the dream with confusion waring with nausea. He is sweat soaked as he pants heavily in the warmed air of the night. His dreams have made less sense than ever; they hold no sway over the actual course of events in the way he’s come to expect of them. If he is not dreaming of that touch upon the pyramid, of whispers in the voice of Myrinne, of whispers in another voice he rather wants to  _forget_ , then he is dreaming of events that make no possible sense.

He is Alexios and he stands in Athens, speaks with Perikles and the ghost of a woman who calls herself Aspasia, someone who was once of Sparta but now is of Athens. She is powerful, he knows, but despite his misforgiving’s he listens and follows as she commands him. He sees Phoibe, in Attika, far too close to Chrysis for comfort, even closer to the Monger. He sees Myrinne. She is crying, holding him. She calls him ‘lamb’.

There is an arrow in Kassandra-that-is-Deimos’ back. There is blood upon a battlefield. There is Stentor who kills him and who stops. There is the Cult, an ever looming hydra of heads in control with the shadow that puppeteers them all and stands in purple-blacks away from the crowd, cautious, aware of the steps that must be taken.

Deimos shudders a breath and moves in the dark, dawning light of day from where he’s settled to sleep. He dresses in silence and waits for his  _minders_  to inform him of any news they deign to tell him. If they have nothing then Deimos will go out and seek his own. He’s done so before, often enough that no one will find his actions surprising.

If this day Deimos’ movements are far more jerky and uncoordinated no one makes a comment, even as word comes to him of  _Kassandra_. They whisper that she is seen in Thermopylae. They say she has a ship, that she sets sail from the fabled landfall of Leonidas’ final stand. She is there with a figure that sounds familiar, but Deimos cannot name. Not at first.

Without word Deimos prepares to set to sea, a ship all his own under command. The Cult gives him this with the revelation that Kassandra has her own ship. Whispers of the  _Adrestia_  reach even his ears before he learns it is  _hers_  as the Cult already knows. Deimos wants no confrontation at sea, he wants no  _fight_  with this not-sister that dogs his steps in his dreams and nightmares.

Kassandra dogs his steps in the daylight too, and it leaves Deimos with a breathless sort of intensity that he doesn’t understand. It is like he can  _feel_  her, just there on the edge of his world, and how she demands his attention. He moves to follow her without even truly understanding that he does so until he sees her there, at the ancient Forge that calls to something deep within his blood. Deimos feels her as if she holds godhood in the palms of her hands the way he does.

_He sees her operate the pyramid as he. He sees her touch artifacts from beyond as he. She works the inner magics of the Forge as easy as he, listens to the voices as he, and it drives him **mad**._

Deimos leaves to sea aimless, and when he meets her at the Forge he aims to test her although what he expects he doesn’t know. He knows what he gets is not what he  _wants_. He sees himself, twenty-five and Alexios, wielding his grandfather’s spear with grace that Kassandra wields in his face and it  _hurts_. It hurts because he dreams this after he dreams of Myrinne and her hold of him, as he grieves something which doesn’t quite translate from dreams to waking. She holds him and whispers to him and he cries as she does—and this, this confrontation comes next in a sequence out of order and forgotten.

 _Oh, my lamb_.

Deimos burrows this feeling deep down and focuses on Kassandra, on the Forge, on her  _touch_  until there is nothing left to focus upon and he is wrung out, left to dry with even less understanding in the handful of days since he first really, truly met this girl who must be ten years his senior. This girl that must be his sister despite the odds—who lives the life he as Alexios lives, has  _stolen_  from him—it reminds Deimos of things he wishes to forget.

_I’m here, my lamb, I’m here._

There is only nightmares and lies at the end of this path of Kassandra’s, but Deimos walks along anyway. He walks until his feet bleeds and until he isn’t able to breathe and until his answers are left with more questions and his questions hang in the air forgotten. He walks and follows until all he can do is  _scream_  because this world hurts in its confusing nature. Deimos walks and follows and he hates himself for it—for this feeling deep within his breast that he blames upon the Deimos-that-is-Alexios in the dreams.

* * *

 

It is not the first time Deimos has been here, upon this island in the middle of the sea. It is not the first time he steps among the halls of would-be-gods, or listens to the voice that names herself Alethea. When the Cult feels that he needs reminding they drag him here, to this island in nowhere, and this door. They force the blade into his hands until they cut and bleed and the door dips down and open.

Deimos knows the door opens for his blood. It is not the first time he has need of it, but here he watches as Kassandra steps forward and holds her spear aloft—Leonidas’ spear, ancient and  _powerful_  in a way that takes and  _takes and takes_  and Deimos turns his head away. The door crumbles down and in she steps and here he waits. Kassandra offers no blood, the door opens, and Deimos waits. It is bitterly unfair.

The sun dips down below the horizon. Deimos is upon a ledge that overlooks the door. It is hours that he waits, long enough for him set his sword in favor of his work upon his bow. The string needs tightening, and several of the arrows fletching need their own care. His back is against the edge of the cliff and he focuses near single mindedly on this task. Then the door rumbles open again and Deimos shifts.

Kassandra steps through the entryway, speaking to herself under her own breath. The spear is—different. Deimos can feel it like the thrum of his blood. There is something more to it now, something  _stronger_. Of course the spear is what the Forge can fix, not his sword. Of course that part of the ancient thing still works. How life seems to stack in Kassandra’s favor. Deimos’ lips curl and before he thinks an arrow knocks against his bow, the string is taunt, and then it looses to Kassandra’s feet.

Well, Deimos wants to talk. He wants to  _see_  about this confusing mess of a woman that has his dreams now sideways.

“We need to talk,” he says around a mouthful of other words he wants to say and he doesn’t, and without a thought that her wide eyes could lead to an attack at his back Deimos climbs. He can hear below him how Kassandra sighs and climbs after him. He can hear her grunts and the sounds of her fingers digging into the earth and rock.

Deimos drags himself up and over the edge of the rock and storms forward. He turns and twists and waits for Kassandra to make the rest of her own way up as well, and when she stands there all smiles on her face he scowls. He doesn’t know what to say. What does one say to their probable killer? To their supposed sister?

Deimos turns his head away and huffs, says something he hopes is witty and watches as she fumbles through her words the way Deimos wants to.

“Did you come alone? Are you alright?” Kassandra is laughing, she explodes with disbelief and it puts a stop to everything Deimos wants to say, or he thinks he wants to say. Why is she happy? Does she not hate him? “Alexios,” she breathes, and Deimos jerks back.

 _Alexios_.

No, no he isn’t Alexios. He isn’t that misthios, he’s seventeen and not twenty-seven, he is Deimos of the Cult of Kosmos. He is a god in human flesh. Kassandra moves as if to grab him, to hug him, and Deimos lashes out.

“Don’t touch me!” His voice is thick with anger and confusion. He isn’t certain what is going on, and the look of hurt that crosses Kassandra’s face leaves him breathless and  _wanting_  for the half second that it is there.

She steps back, respects his space, and Deimos—Alexios— _Deimos_  is even more at a loss. She calls him little brother, asks about his life, and he falters because isn’t this what he’s always wanted? It reminds him of how much he is left with the Cult and his pain and his betrayals. His dreams are lies. Kassandra is a lie. He reminds himself this as Ikaros flies above and screeches.

Deimos lashes out.

“I don’t know you!” he yells, and it is truth. Deimos knows Alexios, knows Alexios’ life because the Deimos-that-is-Alexios is a  _dream_  and Kassandra is not. Deimos dreams of Alexios and Alexios’ life with Ikaros on Kephallonia, with Phoibe and Markos, and doesn’t know this Kassandra who stands before him happy smiles at some family reunion that isn’t  _real._

She sounds smug, Deimos notes as he walks around her, looks her up and down, catches sight of the spear at her back. He itches to take it and grab it, longs for the spear, for the familiar weight of two weapons instead of the sword. Deimos prefers daggers and swords to a sword and shield, to the bows that Athenians use, that he uses.

“There’s more important things to argue about,” Kassandra says and Deimos grits his teeth.

Argue? She thinks this is merely an argument? The fact that she claims to know him— _him_ —and yet he knows nothing of her? What does she know? Does she dream as Deimos does? Is she seeing a life as Kassandra-that-is-Deimos how he sees a life of Deimos-that-is-Alexios? He wants to scoff. No, no she isn’t aware of the truth like he is. Her  _godhood_  is weak, and it drives home the idea that  _she_  is weak.

“Fine,” Deimos spits out. “You are right.” She seems to hold surprise at his confession. Ignorant foolish woman, Deimos wants to laugh. “Let’s talk about the artifact.”

“What?”

“It got my attention,” Deimos sneers, and he puffs up because he’s found it. This is the crux of the matter, isn’t it? “That is what you wanted, right?” The Cultists always wan a bit of Deimos’ attention. They  _need_  it, they  _crave_  it, like they crave the pyramid and the power it brings them. Deimos laughs.

“We’re family,” Kassandra tells him, and Deimos rolls his eyes. An infant could see the truth of that, sure, he can admit to a relation. She glows in a way that Deimos does, but it is  _weak_  and he doesn’t care. Family means nothing. “We made it out of Sparta alive, little brother,” she says, implores.

Deimos barely withholds a groan at the tale she spins. He wonders at his own desires to talk with her now; this makes no sense to him. Chrysis and Elpeanor and the various Cultists all gladly gave to him his origins. The whispers of how his family abandons him on Mount Teygetos, how he was thrown over the edge to  _die_ , how his mother  _leaves him_  is not hard to forget. Deimos knows the truth, and the pyramid confirms it even now.

The lies that are Deimos-that-is-Alexios makes him question, that is it. Alexios tries to save baby Kassandra in the way that baby Deimos nearly dies. Alexios’ actions are mistaken, certainly, but they are that of a loving older brother. Kassandra’s are of what? Jealousy of his godhood? It strikes him he doesn’t know her reasons, and that he wants to know them. He  _wants_  to know why.

“It confirmed what I always knew,” Deimos tells her, points out how her lies cannot fool him. He’s dealt with lies his whole life. He knows lies. He understands lies. He lives and breathes in those lies. “The  _truth_ ,” Deimos spits. “You  _threw me from a fucking mountain!_ ”

He is  _angry_  and  _grief stricken_  and he needs to know  _why_ and it explodes from him. Why does she do this, yet Deimos-that-is-Alexios doesn’t? Why does he save her and she kills him? There are too many whys and not enough answers and Deimos  _tires_  of no answers.

“It’s not like that, Alexios!” Kassandra speaks out. “Let me explain, please. Sit down. Let’s talk about it.”

Deimos finds he likes the way Kassandra follows him instead of he following her. He likes how she dogs his steps the way he dogs hers and finds that this turn events pleases him more than the mess his mind is in after that first meeting of theirs face to face in the darkness of the Cults home deep beneath the Oracle’s temple.

“Alexios!” Kassandra implores and Deimos snarls.

“ _That is not my name!”_  Deimos whirls around and he is fire and fury—and Kassandra closes. She is not welcoming anymore.

It—hurts. It hurts the way she takes a breath and settles herself. It hurts how she utters, “Right. Deimos,” as if to remind herself of things that are not true.

He is Deimos.

 _He is Deimos_.

Why does this fact suddenly hurt?

* * *

 

Deimos stands upon the deck of his ship and is not even fully aware of himself for hours. As if from beneath water he tells Kissos to take him away, _anywhere_ , but just away. He needs to be away—from the Forge, the _Adrestia_ , Kassandra—everything. Deimos needs to be _away_. Kissos, mercifully, listens and the ship undocks from the island. It is nauseating. Deimos never gets his sea legs, so he settles onto a bench and stares down at the map of the Greek word in silence.

He is as much not here as he is here. His mind is a mess. He hears the lies and truths and whispers of gods and Deimos isn’t certain what to believe. He isn’t certain he wants to _know_ but at the same time—he presses for answers, against the universe, against the world and desires— _desires_ —Deimos breathes. He desires Kephallonia.

 _Phoibe_.

Deimos wants _Phoibe_.

“Kephallonia,” is all Deimos says and Kissos listens. Kissos is smart—Deimos likes the man. He likes how he listens with little pressure or need of bloodshed, and he likes how attentive Kissos is to his needs. More than anything Deimos likes how Kissos gives him space and keeps his hands to himself and away from Deimos.

It takes days before Deimos’ bones settle enough with the sea and the nausea abates, and then days more before the ship even nears the waters that surrounds Kephallonia. Deimos spends those days on the bench. He eats the food offered to him and stares at the map of the Greek world in otherwise silence. His is not here and he is not there for the trip and he barely sleeps.

The dreams make no sense either way, so what worth is sleep? Each time he closes his eyes he is haunted by death and Deimos tires of dreams of death. There is plenty of death in his life, plenty of death that he causes, and he hates to see the death brought by Deimos-that-is-Alexios. Deimos sleeps little.

 _Alexios_ , Kassandra calls him as he stares at the map of the Greek world.

 _Deimos_ , Chrysis croons as he sips upon wine.

It is like a great tearing within himself, as if parts of him are wrong and press together wrong and something is just _wrong_. He feels neither like Deimos, who he _is_ and who he _has been_ since a small child—Deimos that is the cults tool, a blunt instrument to follow their desires. Then there is Alexios, or the Deimos-that-is-Alexios in his dreams, and he is just as much present here as Deimos is—and he wants _Kassandra_ and _family_ and Deimos can’t even think straight through the way his soul fissures.

Then the ship docks and Kephallonia is _there_ and Deimos breathes for what feels like the first moment in an age. Deimos is awake and stands and goes to seek out Phoibe without any words to Kissos. He finds her with Markos at his vineyard and she is—frustrated, tense, and yet so utterly Phoibe that Deimos relaxes just the little bit. Phoibe is something that might’ve been Kassandra’s, might’ve been Deimos-that-is-Alexios’, but here she is _Deimos’_ and that is something he’s taken with his own hands and kept.

Phoibe is _radiant_ and Deimos—Deimos feels a little more here, a little more _real_.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deimos is a puppet. He knows this. He hates this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for clear stated self-harm.

The shadows are a comfort. Deimos settles in them off to the edge of the vineyard and waits and waits and waits. He watches as Phoibe fetches things for Markos, as she follows his command with her face sometimes pinched because she dislikes it. Deimos dislikes it just as much. Eventually though Phoibe gathers herself up to leave for the day and spots him in the shadows of a tree with his legs over one another as he sips on wine.

“You came back!” Phoibe practically skips over to him with radiant smiles. Deimos notes that she is without her eagle statue. He wants to frown at the thought that Kassandra now carries it with her. A part of him  _aches_  but he brushes it aside for a smile.

Deimos does not speak. He is never certain of his words around Phoibe. A part of him always sees her as the kid he raises once her parents are gone, and a part of him that is younger than the Deimos-that-is-Alexios-that-is-twenty-seven sees her like a little sister and he isn’t sure which is which a lot of the time. He isn’t sure of who he is after days of sea travel and whispers of  _Deimos_  and  _Alexios_  in voices he wants to forget. The lack of sleep surely isn’t helping matters either, but Deimos decides to ignore that.

“Last time you were so angry I thought you’d never come back,” Phoibe says softly as Deimos rises to his feet. He towers over her, but she is small and young and that is to be expected. Carefully Deimos places his hand on her shoulder, then at her back, and nudges her toward the road. Phoibe leads him home. “But that’s silly, isn’t it? You were mad the other times and you always came back.”

Deimos says nothing. He lets her chatter wash over him and ground him  _here_  so that he can find himself again. His talk with Kassandra is rattling around in his head and he dislikes it. Phoibe is— _Phoibe_  and that is all Deimos cares about right now.

They walk down the street and Phoibe kicks at pebbles in the way. “Kassandra left,” she says, and she sounds upset at the notion. “I asked her if she was ever going to come back to Kephallonia.” Deimos already knows the answer to this.

Kassandra will never return to this quaint little island and its memories because it is in her past and she always wants to leave it until finally she is gone and it is empty. Now she takes that chance, and more than that the Cult will drop hints and teases to keep her traveling and doing their bidding like the subtle blade that Deimos  _isn’t_  and it  _grates_. Deimos frowns and keeps his silence.

“She’s not going to come back, is she,” Phoibe whispers and Deimos sighs. He places a hand on Phoibe’s head and ruffles her hair like he’s seen himself do in his dreams. She laughs and bats his hand away. “Hey!” Deimos smiles. Her laughter is a balm.

They continue their journey down the road and up to Alexios—to Kassandra, Deimos needs to remember this is  _Kassandra’s_ —house. Phoibe stays here, she says softly. She misses Kassandra. Deimos hates it—hates how much the sister that kills him means so much to this girl. He hates how much he cares about her too, how much it grates on him that Kassandra—and  _Alexios_ —just left Phoibe here alone. Deimos is alone too.

There is food, thankfully, and Deimos prepares a small meal for Phoibe in silence. She knows him as silent, as a mute, and Deimos isn’t concerned with correcting her because he is never certain of his tongue around her. It is fine to be silent sometimes. Deimos talks plenty among the Cult, he needs to make his words known. It is a relief not to talk at all like it is a relief that Kissos keeps his space or how Phoibe smiles at him and eats his food and doesn’t find fault in his silence or his reticence to touch.

“I have an idea,” Phoibe says suddenly as she takes a bite of the meat. “You have a ship, right? Of course you do. It is the only way to come and go from Kephallonia! So, you have a ship. That means you can travel.”

Deimos nods, not quite sure he likes where this heads.

“Then you can take me away!” Phoibe perks up with this thought. “You can take me away to somewhere other than Kephallonia and I can see Kassandra again and I can introduce the two of you and I won’t have to deal with stupid Markos anymore!”

Deimos frowns and—and no, he can’t. It is Phoibe. He can’t trust the crew with her they are of the Cult. Kissos is his minder at sea. They will tell—no, he can’t, he  _can’t_.

Deimos speaks for the first time to Phoibe and he utters a hoarse, “No.”

* * *

Night falls and Deimos sits, wide awake, with his back to the wall of Kassandra’s house and stares up at the sky. Phoibe is mad at him and he is at a loss as to what to do. Anger, disappointment, anything of the like usually heralds pain. If Deimos upsets anyone in the Cult when he is younger it ends in yet another lesson onto the unfairness of the world, another lesson onto handling pain. It isn’t so much a fear that Phoibe will follow in Chrysis’ steps, or Elpeanor’s steps, or anyone’s steps but her own really. It is just something Deimos is incapable of shaking.

It is something so deeply now ingrained into him that anger is something he tries to avoid in others. The last time—the last time Chrysis hands him over to the Monger and Deimos  _hates_. He rubs at his arms and watches the night sky in an effort not to sleep. The dreams that follow are not helpful, even if he tires from days of barely any sleep because his dreams are a mess. Instead Deimos is hyperaware of his surroundings. He hears every little breath Phoibe makes inside as she ignores him in her anger, he hears the whisper of the grasses in the wind.

He hears the subtle footfalls of someone walking up the path and tenses. The only one who dares to come here will be Markos and Deimos knows that if the choice is his Markos dies. He shuffles back silently, one hand already gripping his blade—so out of his awareness he’s been he only now realizes that he’s come to Phoibe in dress fit for the Cult. His armor that gleans, sword that shines, and shield that he hates all glittering golds and stronger than steels.

Deimos chuffs to himself a soft chiding sound and glances around until—until it’s Kissos. Deimos tenses and—his chest is tight. It is tight and it  _hurts_  and he can’t quite breathe. What is Kissos—what is—this is wrong. This is dangerous. This—

“Peace,” Kissos says, hands up. He keeps his fair distance but Deimos trusts none of it. “You didn’t come back to the ship.”

Deimos bares his teeth. He tries not to think how this means that the Cult  _knows_. They know and it terrifies him, it bites at his insides, it—

“She’s at no danger from me,” Kissos says and takes a step forward. Deimos shifts the slightest bit, fingers on his blade as it pulls from the earth. His head spins and he can’t quite hear right. He mustn’t—Phoibe— “Or from the ship.” Kissos stops. Deimos waits, unable to breathe.

With a sigh Kissos drops to the ground and crosses his ankles. “She can’t stay here.”

Deimos breathes in.

“Why.”

“This is the home of the Wolf’s daughter,” Kissos says by way of explanation, and Deimos ducks his head. His thoughts are a mess of hows and whys and he  _knows_  what the Cult is like why is he not paying attention? He always pays them attention. Why—more seriously, more straightforward, Kissos adds, “If she is so determined to leave she will find another way. A less safe way. My crew, my ship, will bring her no harm.”

Deimos bares his teeth, eyes wide as he tries to find the truth in his thoughts. This isn’t right, he thinks, this isn’t—he is so  _careful_  so how—

“And that is why,” Kissos mumbles under his breath with another sigh and a scrub of hands across his face. “Do you see?”

For a moment Deimos says nothing. He stares at the ground and refuses to look at Kissos, refuses to find name to how he feels so utterly sick. The last he feels this sick is when he first comes to Kephellonia, he thinks, or maybe before that—before he stops Elpeanor and Chrysis and—Deimos forces himself to breathe. Kissos is patient. Deimos  _hates_  it.

“I see,” Deimos grounds out eventually through the acid clawing its way up his throat. He refuses to look to Kissos as he hears the man rise, refuses to acknowledge the Cultist as he turns to leave.

“Good,” is all Kissos says. “I’m glad.”

In the morning when Phoibe awakes, none-the-wiser about the events of last night and how very little Deimos sleeps, Deimos utters words for the second time in her presence.

“We leave at dawn tomorrow.”

Phoibe’s wide smile, breathless laugh, and pure joy are not enough to curb the sinking, twisted feeling deep within Deimos’ chest. He is a fool, Deimos knows this, he is so very much a fool.

* * *

Deimos is not even able to tell Kissos the destination by the time he brings Phoibe aboard the ship at dawn. Kissos already plans one, and Deimos can see it in the way the men ready to go, in the way the course is already in the charts on the ship and he is bereft. Deimos wants to bundle Phoibe away—away from the Cult and away from himself because  _he did this_  but the choice is not in his hands. Not anymore. The Cult wants Phoibe.

Deimos wants to slaughter them.

Phoibe stares up at Deimos in wonder, his hand stills, he sighs, and let’s Kissos do as he wills. It is a reminder of all the lessons that he’s taken, a reminder—and Deimos knows where Kissos goes. Deimos knows whose hands stir this pot and it  _grates_  and he  _hates_  but he says nothing. There is but one person Deimos truly fears, a real snake, the hydra’s heart—and so he goes along in silence and meekness because what else can he do? There are monsters worse than him in the Cult, and while the majority worship the ground he walks because he is a demigod there are others still that know how his strings work.

He is, at their heart, their puppet and he hates that this is a truth. It is a truth he wants nothing more of—but he also knows that he owes the Cult his life a thousand times over and it is why he takes the lessons as a child, why he handles Elpeanor and Chrysis and the Monger and the  _shadow_  that commands it all.

The ship sails into port in Athens days upon days later. Days where Deimos works hard to keep Phoibe’s attentions away from the crew and Kissos and he knows he fails at subtlety. Deimos is not the greatest at subtlety. Neither is the Deimos-that-is-Alexios in his dreams, but at least there he knows something more if it than here when he wakes and wanders the world. These are days spent barely sleeping and his face betrays him. Phoibe consistently glances at him out of concern but Deimos brushes it aside. He speaks and speaks and speaks of nonsense and silly things to keep her attention until his voice is hoarse.

It takes only one instance where Phoibe asks of Deimos if he has one of Zeus’ eagles before the girl gets the idea that the ship is not safe. She knows its dangerous, but it is Kissos’ words that edge with cruelty that gets her to stop attempting to speak with them altogether by day three.

“Why would he have an eagle?” Kissos laughs. “To be like the Eagle Bearer who has tried to kill him?”

Deimos glowers, Phoibe goes silent, and the look of concern she shoots him makes his chest twist with pain. He whispers to her later that this is a lie.

“I have never met her,” he says, softly in the dead of night as Kissos sleeps. “How could she try to kill me?” The lies burn, and when Phoibe finally settles that night Deimos takes his blade to his arms and drags it along with a hiss and a reminder.

 _The world is lies_. Deimos hates lies. They bite bitter pain into his skin and it makes him feel the sickness burning in his throat. He hates the feeling of them. The lies take him as they sail and sail until they reach Athens, and then Deimos says goodbye.

Deimos finds he hates forceful goodbyes even more than he hates lies.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted more Deimos | Alexios centered fics (either as Deimos or as Alexios) so I decided to make my own. This is my first foray into Assassin's Creed fanfiction.


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